How To / Can I Turn Off / Disable Automatic Updates In Firefox

Firefox, by far is my favorite web browser (get latest version of Firefox). It is equipped with some really nice features. One of them is automatic updates.

By default, Firefox checks if updates are available and downloads or installs the updates when available. If automatic updates are turned on in Firefox then all the above processes run silently on your PC. However this is not beneficial all the times. In certain cases you may want to know about the updates on your computer and want the applications to be downloaded and installed after you scrutinize it. Along with the notification of the updates, you may sometimes want install your updates manually as well.

Firefox gives you the option to choose either turn off these automatic updates completely or get notified before they are installed. The browser application, ‘Installed Add-ons’ and “Search Engines” allows you to install these updates. While it is highly recommended that you keep the automatic updates ‘ON’ in order to get important security fixes on time, you do have the option to disable automatic updates if you do not want to avail this facility.

In order to disable automatic updates you have to follow these simple steps:

1. On the Firefox menu bar, select ‘Tools‘–> ‘Options‘.
2. Click the ‘Advanced‘icon in the window.
3. Click on ‘Update‘tab. The auto-update options are displayed.

To completely turn off automatic updates, un-check all the 3 options that are visible, ie un-check – Firefox, Add-ons and Search Engines.

2 Replies to “How To / Can I Turn Off / Disable Automatic Updates In Firefox”

@Yohan – I totally agree with you. This can be sticking point. Updating any software will keep you on par with the latest patches, not just features, but also security. So if you do not know what you are doing, then you might end up in unwanted situations! Thanks..

From a security point of view, i’d recommend only turning off the updates if you really know what you’re doing. Manual updates can seem useful once or twice but it may often end up in a situation where you will forget about the updates completely and update Firefox (or any other software) once every few months. This will leave security flaws for a long time before they are corrected..